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Tag: unique

Nathan

Want/Need

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In the UK, wanting to be a PhD means needing to have a viva.

A lot could be done to help postgraduate researchers be prepared for the viva – even from the early stages of the PhD – if we helped people see that the viva is just another part of the process, like a literature review or an annual report or even a meeting with a supervisor. It’s just something that needs to happen.

And like lit reviews, reports and meetings, vivas are different for individuals too.

Unique, in fact.

There can be expectations and norms, but always differences. There’s lots and lots of general advice for PhDs based on useful structures that broadly apply – for writing, doing research, being a researcher – and then every PGR has to make sense of those for them, their research, their PhD.

You need all those things to be a PhD. You need your viva too. If you feel resistance towards it, for any reason, then you have to be responsible for working past it. What steps could you take to steer your perception towards the viva?

How can you see it not as some terrible thing, not perhaps even as the final milestone, but just one more necessary part of the process of becoming a PhD?

Nathan

Atypical

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There are regulations for vivas, and expectations for vivas, but all vivas are different. Some are more different than others.

My viva took four hours. That makes it different from most, by comparison a long viva.

I gave a presentation to start my viva. That made it different, though I didn’t know it at the time.

I was stood for all of my viva, which is really different! I started my presentation, and my examiners neatly segued into questions. I just stayed where I was by the chalkboard. I didn’t feel uncomfortable or wrong (although close I started to feel pretty tired towards the end). This was just how my viva was.

All vivas are different is another way of recognising that every viva is unique. Every viva is a custom, one-off examination process, that follows expectations and guidelines and academic culture, but is still unique.

Unique or different, this doesn’t mean bad. Just… different!

Some vivas are more different than others, but the purpose is always the same.

Make sure you know what the purpose of the viva is: what your examiners are there to do and what you are there to do. Know this before you get there and you’ll feel far more comfortable even if your viva is atypical.

Nathan

How Many Questions?

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I was recently asked how many questions a candidate might get in the viva. What is the range like? wondered the nervous PhD. Was there a minimum or maximum number?

I tried to apply some logic to come up with some numbers, but gave up – the question is a red herring. Examiners will have a lot of questions in mind, some driven by your field, some by their interests, some by your thesis. They’ll have questions that you can expect, and some that you can’t. They’ll ask questions that they didn’t know to ask until you said something interesting in the viva too.

I don’t know how many questions will come up in advance of your viva: we could only know that after the fact.

If you’ve read this blog before then you’ll know I have ideas about how you can prepare for questions though. Do a good piece of research, write a good thesis and spend some practising answering unexpected questions to build your confidence.

Nathan

Unknowable

Daily Post

How long will your viva be?

What will your examiners think about your thesis?

What questions will they ask?

What award will you get?

How will you feel afterwards?

How long will it take to complete corrections?

You might have expectations, but some questions about your viva have answers that are unknowable at this point.

So focus on what you do know.

Your viva comes at the end of several years of hard work. You did the work. You are talented. You’re more than up to the challenge.

Nathan

Special

Daily Post

How big a deal is your viva?

There are tens of thousands of them every year in the UK.

Maybe over a thousand in your university.

Even at a department level there could be dozens.

And your examiners may do four or five per year.

And despite all of the work that leads up to it by everyone involved, it will probably be over in a few hours, and will probably be similar to a lot of other vivas that have happened before.

Not that special.

Except…

…your research is unique. Your thesis is one-of-a-kind. You’re the only person who has gone on the research journey you’ve completed. To do it all, you have to be amazing.

Special is relative. From the perspective that matters – yours – the viva is special.

And so are you.